So I’m looking forward to applying for American colleges this fall.
However, I heard that I can’t get a job in the US after graduation because I’m an international.
One of the reasons that I’m applying to US universities is because I want to settle into another country - preferably US or Canada, maybe Europe.
I’m thinking about majoring in computer science - minor in biology (or vice versa)
Is it really impossible to get a job unless I have phD or masters?
Even for CS graduates from MIT / Stanford / CMU / Ivies ?
U will need to get a work visa to work in a foreign country. It’s hard to justify getting a work visa & displacing a citizen, unless u have either an advanced degree or many years of relevant work experience.
Current work visa regulations make it difficult for foreign college graduates without advanced degrees to immigrate on a work visa.
You can work on OPT for 1-2 after graduation. However, after that, you need a work visa. Unfortunately, there’s a yearly cap on the number of work visas issued and in recent years, that cap has been surpassed in the first week that application were accepted. Meaning - if your application was submitted in the week of April 1, you had to win a lottery in order for your work visa application to be processed. If the application was submitted at any other time, it was automatically rejected. It’s easier for Masters and PhDs because there is an additional visa allotment for people with advanced degrees, and they are also more likely to meet the criteria for a work-based green card.
That all being said, if you want to immigrate to the US, the best way to do that is to meet a US citizen in college and get married before you graduate.
It’s not easy to immigrate, no, but it’s not impossible. What you major in, where you go to school, how well you do there, and how you network will matter. Some companies & fields recruit/are willing to sponsor work visas more than others, and one work around can be to find jobs working for a company from your home country that has a US/foreign presence (those companies are better able to argue that no US citizen is more qualified for the job, which is a base requirement usually for not hiring “local”). OP, I know you’re from South Korea. There are definitely Korean companies with US offices (especially in NYC & LA) that definitely sponsor work visas for certain employees. But that said, depending on what you major in and where you go, you may have luck finding a job before your visa expires that would sponsor you. Worst case, get your degree in the US then go back home and work your way up working for a company that might later sponsor you to move.
The worst case scenario in India is exceptionally bad. Returning to home country with a BS in Computer Science to the home country is the worst nightmare. There are no ambitious jobs unless your family member can set you up somewhere in the Indian origin IT companies. That person might just end up with a job that pays around 5000-6000 USD a year… Without much hope of any serious laddering.
There are over 100,000 Indian students enrolled in the U.S. institutes for UG studies. Taking note of the immigration laws and the situation here, what do you think will happen to most of them ?
In the past, work permission while in college and after graduation was easier to arrange in Canada and Australia. Spend some time with Google, and investigate the current situation in both of those countries.
“There are over 100,000 Indian students enrolled in the U.S. institutes for UG studies. Taking note of the immigration laws and the situation here, what do you think will happen to most of them ?”
Some will marry Americans and stay. Others will choose to go back home or to other countries where it’s easier to get work permits. A few brilliant ones will get H2B visas and then a GC through their employers; the other “lucky” H2B visa recipients will work for less money than their American counterparts, and then get sent home to be replaced by the next batch of “lucky” H2B visa recipients.
America is no longer the land of opportunity that it used to be. There is less government money for research and the private sector is increasingly outsourcing much of its R&D money. To many Americans, the idea of 100,000 Indians in the US is highly ironic considering the tens of thousands of American jobs that went to… India.
There’s no irony. It’s perfectly rational. The jobs got outsourced to india because the workers get paid less. That’s precisely why the Indian students want jobs in the US: they don’t want the low pay there.
I know it is a bit easier for engineering/CS students to get H1B visa, but what about others? Like business, finance, music, or any non-science major or pure science(physics, chemistry) major?
The only people with just an undergraduate degree who have reported here that they were able to get an H1B after their OPT expired were people with degrees in computer science and/or engineering.
If your fanily’s paperwork isn’t sorted out and you haven’t found a US citizen to marry by the time your OPT expires @paul2752, then you can extend your time in the US by enrolling in grad school and completing a second OPT when you finish your graduate program.